


Ho Ho Holy shit....

by SEABlRD



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brief homophobia, Christmas Fluff, Family Dynamics, Gen, M/M, Nicaise Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 02:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17194439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEABlRD/pseuds/SEABlRD
Summary: Not everyone has a holly jolly Christmas Eve, but Laurent and Damen try their best to make the most of it with a romantic movie night."try" being the operative word. A call comes in the evening, forcing them to change their plans a little...-----Secret Santa gift for NicaiseDeservedBetter! <3





	Ho Ho Holy shit....

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NicaiseDeservedBetter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicaiseDeservedBetter/gifts).



> Merry (slightly belated) Christmas @NicaiseDeservedBetter!!! :3c I loved your prompts and this came to mind immediately at the mention of modern AU and found families <3 <3 <3  
> the relationship between Nicaise and the boys is up to you!! i figured he might be related to Laurent, or maybe a foster, but either way he is very much alive and loved :3c  
> I hope you enjoy!! :D

It’s not _super late_ when the call comes, but it does come at a time when one would generally prefer not to receive calls. Say, ten thirty at night?

Laurent untangles himself from Damen’s arms, leaving the warm spot on the couch where they’d settled in for the evening, to go answer the phone. Really, it’s just bad foresight for him to have forgotten it on the kitchen table when both of them had planned on not getting back up once they’d sat down, but alas.

He reaches the phone just as it’s on the last ring and huffs into the receiver. “Hello?” he answers, and instantly the youthful voice on the other side is readily complaining.

“You’re going to have to pick me up,” Nicaise says, interrupting Laurent in the middle of his greeting. “This party blows and the people here are all assholes.”

“You’re not allowed to say that word in public,” Laurent reminds him, switching the phone to his other ear. Damen says that’s Laurent’s ‘business listening mode’. “What’s wrong? Did somebody try to hurt you?”

“If death by poisoning counts, since the food is that bad,” Nicaise sniffs, far more arrogant than any fourteen year old has any right to be. His voice raises as he’s clearly yelling at someone in the background. “That’s right, Marsha, I said your so-called homemade oatmeal squares fucking SUCK! We all know you bought them at Costco anyway!”

Laurent is already putting on his jacket while stepping into his boots, the phone nestled between his ear and his shoulder. “Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here,” he says, making eye contact with Damen as he finishes zipping up his coat. On the couch Damen groans and reluctantly gets up as well, pouting when the fuzzy blanket falls away from his shoulders and exposing him to the cold.

“Whatever, just come pick me up.”

“We’re on our way,” Laurent says. “We’ll be there in ten minutes tops, so start packing up.”

“ _Damen_ will be here in ten minutes tops,” Nicaise snorts. “You’ll be here in ten minutes bottom.”

“ _Goodbye Nicaise._ ”

Laurent hangs up and puts the phone on the little table where Damen keeps the keys, while Damen finishes pulling on his own coat.

“Something wrong?” Damen asks, concern growing on his face. Laurent shrugs and shakes his head.

“We won’t know until we get there, I’d assume.”

Damen follows him out the door after grabbing the car keys and unlocking the door remotely. Laurent is already sitting in the front passenger’s seat waiting for him to get in and start the car.

When the key is in the ignition and the heater is on full blast, Laurent turns to him with a serious look. “What if something really bad happened?” he speculates, and Damen can already see the nightmare scenarios playing out in his boyfriend’s head.

“Nicaise is a smart kid,” Damen reassures him. “If something serious happened, he wouldn’t wait around in the house to give you a call. I’m pretty sure he’d be halfway to the nearest police station, actually. Besides, aren’t there supposed to be chaperones? They’ll take care of things if it gets dangerous.”

Laurent purses his lips and looks out the window, fingers drumming on the armrest. “You’re probably right,” he says, finally.

Damen puts the car in reverse once the windows have unfogged, creeping into the glow of the streetlamp across the street. “Where was the party, again?”

“Twenty-third and Midway,” Laurent replies. “It’s faster if you take Main all the way down.”

They pass by many decorated houses, strings of colourful lights hung over trees and balconies brightening each block. Every so often a large, inflatable Santa Claus or snowman lurks in a corner, overseeing the handful of smaller decoration scattered across the front yard. It makes the modest, plain white string lights in front of their own home seem sparse in comparison.

“We should get one of those,” Laurent points out the window at an illuminated wireframe deer, the kind that raises and lowers its head mechanically as though it’s eating the snow.

Damen turns his head to look at it in the rearview as they pass it by. “Maybe for next year,” he nods.

The silence in the car draws out until Laurent speaks up again, not for Christmas decorations this time.

“I worry for him,” he confesses. “He’s so abrasive, and he doesn’t have a lot of friends. You know how he is. Do you think he’s being bullied?”

“I don’t think he’d _let_ himself be bullied,” Damen replies honestly. A brief mental image of the teen physically threatening him with cutlery, just days after Damen first asked Laurent out on a date, flashes through his mind.

Beside him Laurent is nodding. “You’re probably right. I did show him how to defend himself, if he really needs to.”

“See?” Damen points at him enthusiastically. “That’s good. That means he won’t let people just push him around, and stuff.”

The house with the party, hosted by one of the richer kids in Nicaise’s class, is coming up just around the corner. It’s hard to miss, with the flashing Christmas lights and expensive decoration sets in the yard. There’s also the small matter of the BMW in the driveway, but who notices things like that these days, anyway?

Laurent already has one foot out of the car while Damen parks slowly. He walks briskly up the excessively long walkway to the porch, where he knocks three times. He barely even has to wait before the door swings open, showing a rather irate Nicaise with his backpack and sleeping bag slung over each of his shoulders. There's the beginnings of a bruise forming on his left cheek.

Nicaise, for his part, pushes past Laurent rudely and stands behind him. Definitely not cowering in any way, of course. Laurent tucks his hands in his pockets, having forgotten to bring gloves, and turns his attention to the huffing mother in the door frame.

She is the mother of aforementioned rich kid from Nicaise’s class, as well as the leader of some PTA club or whatnot. Laurent doesn’t bother much with the PTA, finding them unnecessarily combative, considering they’re dealing with children and school things.

“That boy,” the mother–Lucille? Lina?–says sharply. “Needs to be taught some _discipline_. He called one of the other boys the ‘b’ word!”

“‘Motherfucker’ doesn’t start with a ‘b’,” Nicaise bites snidely, and Laurent can picture the sneer on his face as he says it without even looking at him.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Laurent says placatingly. “It’s a bad habit we’ve been trying to get him to break, but you know how kids are, at this age.”

Louise(?) straightens her back, causing her hair to move strangely. It’s up in a style that seems like it would be more fitting during the 60s and doesn’t suit her at all. “Yes, well, if this behavior persists then he might find himself suspended, or _expelled_ , when the holidays are over,” she sniffs.

“Yeah?” Nicaise pipes up again, and Laurent is this close to putting a hand over his mouth. “What about your ‘sweet darling boys’, huh? They’d take you off the Anti-Bullying committee if they knew what you let your kids say.”

Lucille’s face turns bright red, and she sputters indignantly for a little until one of the other mothers chaperoning the party comes up behind her and puts a soothing hand on her shoulder.

“Now, now,” she says. Laurent recognizes her as Marsha. “It’s late, and we’re waiting for you to come back so we can continue watching the movie. Let’s let Nicky go home, and we can continue the party with the boys.”

“Your brat isn’t off the hook either,” Nicaise spits. “You heard what they all said about LeFou, and neither of you did anything about that!”

“I’m sorry, what’s going on?” Laurent has to ask, because being half in the dark is not a position he’s particularly fond of.

“Oh, we were just watching Beauty and the Beast,” Liza smiles insincerely. “The new one. Some of the boys may have said something about one of the characters, and Nick took offense to it. You know how kids are.”

Given the context clues, and the controversy that surrounded a certain character from the Beauty and the Beast remake, Laurent can already tell what was being said about who. Suddenly, Nicaise’s reaction doesn’t seem quite so unreasonable after all.

“Is that right,” he hums, noncommittal. Casually, he takes his hands out of his pockets. He hears a rapid shuffling of feet behind him.

“O-kay, we don’t want any trouble,” Damen’s voice comes behind him moments before his hands come down on Laurent’s shoulders, and Laurent can feel him leaning over his back warningly. “We’re sorry for the disturbance, Lianne.” Ah, yes, that’s her name. “We’ll just take Nicaise home with us, and then we can all enjoy our evening. How does that sound?”

Lianne makes a face as if she’d eaten a whole lemon and is trying to hide it. “Of course, Damen,” she says, sickly sweet in its fakeness. “Have a good evening, Nickie. We’ll see you in school!”

“ _Nicaise_ ,” Nicaise growls. Laurent takes him by the hand and follows Damen back to the car without so much as a ‘goodbye’. But it doesn’t end there, of course.

“Merry Christmas!” Lianne shouts from her porch, backlit by the gaudy red and green string of lights.

“Happy holidays!” Damen calls back politely, and it sets something off in the woman’s body language.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” she shouts again. “We say ‘Merry Christmas’!”

“Whatever,” Nicaise turns around quickly, nearly whacking Damen with his backpack. He manages to get out a venomous “exfoliate, bitch!” before Damen physically picks him up and deposits him in the backseat.

Lianne’s reddened, furious face is worth it.

The ride back home is significantly less quiet than the one to pick Nicaise up, courtesy of Nicaise himself.

“What a homophobic _bitch_ ,” he opens, untangling himself from the straps of his bags as Damen pulls a U-turn. “You should’ve heard some of the shit she let the other guys say, you’d be ready to throw a few punches too. You know she’s mostly just jealous that you’re fucking Damen and she’s not, right?” He aims the last part at Laurent, who rolls his eyes.

“That still doesn’t warrant picking fights and calling people names, especially when you’re outnumbered.” Laurent shakes his head disapprovingly. “You’re lucky the chaperones were there, or you might have come home with some broken bones for Christmas.”

“I’m sorry your sleepover party didn’t work out, bud,” Damen chimes in, shooting Nicaise an apologetic glance through the rearview mirror.

Nicaise waves his hand dismissively in return. “It’s fine, I didn’t even like those guys anyway. I’m pretty sure Dylan just invited me out of pity.”

“Or maybe because you did that group project with him,” Damen suggests.

“You mean the group project I did _for_ him?”

Sensing it might not be the most opportune time to stop that bridge from burning, Damen turns back to the road. Beside him he can hear Laurent and Nicaise commiserating about their experiences with the boys from school and their overbearing mothers.

He ultimately decides not to get into it.

By the time the car pulls back into their driveway Laurent is thoroughly incensed, and the only way to tell is the way he holds himself so carefully, icily still. Nicaise is the opposite, practically bouncing off the walls in the backseat. Both he and Laurent are out of the car before it even comes to a complete stop.

Someday, Damen will have to have a very serious conversation with the both of them about that particular habit.

He exits the car after putting it in park and removing the key, as good responsible car drivers and passengers should do, and follows after the others into the warmth of the house. Nicaise is struggling with the straps of his bags again, while Laurent is already half-shrugged out of his jacket, when Damen finally joins them.

“Need any help there, bud?” Damen asks, even as he’s already lifting the bags from Nicaise’s shoulders so that the boy can slip his arms out more easily.

“Ugh, I _had_ it,” is what he says instead of ‘thank you’.

Damen looks at Laurent and makes a disbelieving gesture at Nicaise’s retreating back as the boy stomps into the living room and dumps himself and his bags onto the couch. Laurent meets the look and shakes his head minutely then heads into the living room as well, making sure Nicaise doesn’t steal all of his and Damen’s blanket from earlier.

Damen resorts to sitting on the La-Z Boy by himself, seeing as the other two take up the entirety of the couch together. “Do you guys wanna watch a movie or something?” he offers, picking up the remote and pointing it at the television. It’s still paused on the cop show rerun he and Laurent we’re watching, but he wouldn’t mind changing it to something else.

“Not really,” Nicaise slumps further into the couch cushions with his arms crossed. “I’ve had enough of movies for today.”

Awkwardly, Damen puts the remote back down. Given the late hour and the sudden change in plans, Damen is completely out of other suggestions. Thankfully, though, it seems Laurent is not.

“You know what? it’s Christmas eve. Why don’t we stay up a bit longer, have some hot chocolate, and open some presents at midnight?” he offers, and Nicaise immediately perks up at the idea of material gain.

“Can I help?” Nicaise asks, and both Laurent and Damen wince at the memory of the last time he tried to make hot chocolate. Needless to say, leaving the stirring spoon in the cup wasn’t a great idea.

“Why don’t you but your bags away, and we’ll have your cup ready when you’re done?”

Nicaise grumbles a little at having to do work, clumping up the stairs as though he’s wearing steel-toed boots rather than fuzzy socks with little bears on them. The ones Damen bought for him, in fact.

Damen trails after Laurent into the kitchen, retrieving three cups while Laurent gets the chocolate mix from the pantry.

“So what happened?” Damen asks. “I kinda missed the beginning of it.”

“They were watching Beauty and the Beast,” Laurent explains. “The remake. Some of the other boys said something about LeFou, and Nicaise must have gotten angry at them for it. The mothers did nothing about it, naturally.”

Damen frowns. “I thought we agreed that was a bad move on Disney’s part?” he cocks his head curiously.

“It absolutely was, but that doesn’t excuse homophobia either way,” Laurent shrugs, filling each up with milk and chocolate mix before popping them into the microwave, setting them for a minute.

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Damen hastily agrees. “Are we just going to let him start picking fights with people who say dumb things all the time, though?”

“You’re one to talk,” Laurent snorts. “Mister ‘can you please come pick me up from mall jail, I punched a bell ringer’.”

“Well, he deserved it.”

Laurent pats him on the arm. “I’m sure he did.”

Nicaise pops into the kitchen just as the microwave dings, moving fast enough that Laurent barely has time to see him before he opens the microwave and grabs one of the cups, breezing into the living room like a whirlwind. It’s a wonder he doesn’t spill his drink on his way.

Laurent picks his own cup, the smaller of the two that are left, and waits for Damen to take the last one, then closes the microwave door. They head back into the living room, where Nicaise is sprawled out like a fat cat on the La-Z boy looking at his phone, which is plugged into the outlet behind the chair.

“Thanks for leaving us the couch,” Laurent says, taking a seat smoothly, whereas Damen plops down into the cushion.

“Huh?” Nicaise looks up, unhearing. “Yeah, sure.”

Damen shares a look with Laurent.

“We have about an hour until midnight,” Damen shrugs. “Do you wanna finish this episode, I guess?”

Laurent only nods and takes a sip of his hot chocolate, the warmth of the mug heating his cold hands. Damen leans over and grabs the remote, spilling a little bit of hot chocolate on himself in the process, and hits play.

The murderer is caught and the team of FBI agents congratulate themselves on another successful case when Nicaise finally looks up from his phone.

“It’s almost midnight,” he announces, putting his now-cooled chocolate milk on the coffee table and dashing up the stairs.

Laurent considers going after him for a moment, but the boy quickly returns with a medium sized, crudely wrapped box.

“This is for both of you,” Nicaise says, putting it in Laurent’s lap. “Since I don’t really get enough allowance to get you separate gifts, y’know.”

“Your allowance is plenty,” Damen huffs in amusement, taking the box from Laurent and holding it between them. He gently tugs on the bow, and it comes off in his hand. Most gift bows don’t stick particularly well, understandably.

“This one’s for you,” Laurent states, getting up and fetching one of the boxes from under the tree. “Open yours first.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Nicaise says, taking the box greedily and tearing straight into the paper. He lets out an excited gasp when he reveals the Switch inside. “Holy shit, this is the best! Thank you guys so much!”

Laurent sits back down next to Damen and helps finish unwrapping the box Nicaise gave them. The wrapping paper covers an old shoe box, one that Laurent recognizes as being from Nicaise’s sneakers he got over the summer.

Damen allows him the honor of lifting the lid, which blocks his own view of the contents, until Laurent pulls the gift out of the box.

…. and pulls

….. and pulls

……. and pulls

Until he’s left with a very, very long scarf in his hands. It’s striped deep red and pastel blue, and both ends fade into opposite colours. On the red end is a roaring lion patch, Damen’s self-proclaimed Hogwarts house, and on the blue end is a patch of Laurent’s family crest, an eight-pointed starburst.

“Oh my gosh,” Damen says, taking the red end in his hands and running his hands over the knit. “Did you make this?”

“I sure did,” Nicaise claims, looking up from his destroyed Switch box with the opened device sitting in his hands. He’s already playing something. “Took a fucking long time too, I didn’t know how long to make it since _one_ of you is like. Ten feet tall..”

“This is long enough to go around both of us,” Laurent says, holding up one end while Damen holds up the other. Even with both their arms extended, there is a significant amount of scarf between them.

“That’s the idea. I’m sure you two are all over that sappy relationship shit. Use it as a leash so you don’t lose each other in a crowd, or something.”

Laurent seems to be frozen on the spot, carefully lowering his end of the scarf to his lap and carefully brushing his thumb over the starburst patch. Damen enthusiastically takes it upon himself to wrap the scarf around Laurent’s neck, and then around his own. It’s long enough to give them quite a bit of movement space, and could probably be worn comfortably when they go out together.

“This is the best thing ever,” Damen nearly buzzes with joy. “I love it so much, Nicaise. I’m sure Laurent loves it too. Thank you for this, really.”

“Don’t presume to know my feelings on the matter,” Laurent interjects, frowning slightly, though Damen can tell he’s flustered. “I’ll strangle you with this scarf.”

“Oh, good, because that’s just what I need,” Nicaise groans in exasperation, throwing his hands up dramatically. “My DNA all over a murder weapon. You better throw that thing in bleach before strangling anybody, I swear…”

“Nicaise,” Laurent says, and the boy stops his exaggerated gesticulating for a moment. “Thank you.”

Nicaise is silent for a good moment before he’s ducking behind his Switch. “Yeah, whatever,” he grumbles. “Merry Christmas, assholes.”

Damen opens his arms and makes beckoning motions. “Come here and give me a hug,” he demands. Nicaise rolls his eyes but gets up anyway, dragging his feet the entire way until Damen pulls him into a tight hug, closely followed by Laurent.

“Merry Christmas to you too, brat,” Laurent says, patting the top of Nicaise’s head affectionately. “Now go to bed, it’s past midnight and we have to be up bright and early tomorrow.”

Both Nicaise and Damen let out matching noises of despair at the idea of waking up before noon.

“No complaining!” Laurent admonishes them both. “You both get to open more presents tomorrow, so go sleep and it will come faster.”

Nicaise is off like a rocket, his switch and phone in hand. Damen and Laurent follow him more slowly, cleaning up the used wrapping paper and tossing it out before heading up as well. By the time they’ve both changed and crawled beneath the covers of their own bed, the scarf carefully folded up on the dresser for tomorrow, it’s nearing one in the morning.

“Merry Christmas, Laurent,” Damen says softly, pressing a kiss to Laurent’s cheek. He wraps an arm around Laurent’s chest and pulls him into an embrace.

Laurent turns his head and gently pecks Damen’s nose. “Merry Christmas to you, too,” he whispers, and turns off the light.


End file.
